The Objective Standard has posted a debate between the Ayn Rand Institute's Yaron Brook and the International Economic Development Council's Jeffrey Finkle on the philosophical issues surrounding eminent domain, and you can listen to it on the TOS website. The debate took place last May.

On the day before Thanksgiving of that year, a sheriff affixed a letter to Kelo's door: Her home had been condemned by the city of New London and the NLDC. She would be given $128,000 in compensation (a little more than twice what she had paid), and she had to be out by March. A few blocks away, on Goshen Street, the same thing was happening at the Cristofaro residence, only in this case both of the elderly Cristofaros happened to be home when the sheriff arrived. According to their son Michael, the news was so upsetting that his mother began having chest pain and had to be taken to the hospital.

Bill Von Winkle, who was living in the Fort and was also a landlord there, recalls another unpleasant moment: "They kicked in the doors and woke people up," he says of the effort to empty his buildings of tenants after he refused to evict them. "Afterwards, they nailed the doors shut and put padlocks on the front. The police had to come and let everyone back in."

The Madison County (Miss.) Journal has this article on a proposal to amend the state constitution to forbid the abuse of eminent domain. The bureaucrats' reaction? Typically, they're upset that the proposal would stand in the way of their ambitious schemes for your property:

Tim Coursey, executive director of the Madison County Economic Development Authority, said that if the public votes in support of the amendment put forward by the state House of Representatives, it could kill the area's ability to compete for businesses in the future that would require private land for use.

"If that were to pass, our competition would be way ahead of us," he said, speaking of other nearby states, and other countries as well, looking to attract development.

The law firm of Brigham Moore in Florida has a great on-line video about their record representing "property owners; never the government" in eminent domain cases. It's refreshing to see such passion for what one partner rightly calls "the right of private ownership [which is] as important as any other civil right. It's as important as owning your speech or your thoughts or your worship."